fs in Node.js Doesn't Understand ~/

Question

I'm trying to check if a directory exists as part of a command-line app in node.js. However, fs doesn't seem to understand ~/. For example, the following returns false...

> fs.existsSync('~/Documents')
false

...but this returns true...

> fs.existsSync('/Users/gtmtg/Documents')
true

...even though they're both the same thing.

Why does this happen, and is there are workaround for this? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

That's because ~/ is supported by the command shell, not the file system APIs.